Mr. T signaled the orchestra, and at once they began the opening bars of "Pomp and Circumstance". All the students, arranged in alphabetical order, walked ten at a time down the aisle, their shoes sinking into the artificial turf. The somber procession turned to the right, tracing the edge of the track, up the few steps to the water fountain, then back to the left, before settling in the bleachers. The sun had not chosen to bless their ceremony, and the students shivered on the cold metal benches. Mr. Mudd walked down from the bleachers to the podium, cleared his throat, and began:

"First, I would like to once again offer my warm congratulations to Heller's 50th graduating class! Typically, as superintendent, I'm shuttled between schools to deliver long, boilerplate, impersonal speeches about bright futures and maturity and you know, the 'land of hope and glory' rhetoric that makes all of you fall asleep. You're fortunate today that I've had a bit more personal involvement with your class than others due to the, shall I say, political circumstances of this year. You've all heard plenty about those from your kids, I hope, and as much as there's an interesting story to be told there I'll save it for their memoirs.

As a former teacher myself, and someone who by virtue of my job description spends a lot of time talking to other teachers, one lesson we always talk about teaching is problem solving. Sounds simple, right? All of you solve problems every day, from the mundane—how do I decide what to eat for lunch today?—to the truly earth-shattering, problems completely beyond my comprehension. For us, who've been around the block a few times, problem solving comes by instinct. Unfortunately, that intellectual independence I'm really getting at doesn't come naturally to students. It's sad, I know: somewhere along the line, in your children's thirteen years before they've come to Heller, none but a precocious few were taught how to solve problems. All they were taught is a rigid set of rules, a flowchart—divide both sides of the equation by the coefficient, subtract the constant, solve—but not why that flowchart exists, or how some bright mathematician years ago came up with that procedure!

If there is one lesson I want your students to take away from their time at Heller, it's the importance of this skill. Many of the people on-stage have taken calculus. Fewer will use it. But that does not mean we should stop teaching calculus, even if the few going into engineering or economics would clamor not to be left behind. Part of why we teach it, and really encourage everyone who can to take it, is so they learn how to tackle new problems, unlike any they've seen before. How they can use sheer force of will to dominate what's on the page. How to cope when intuition, that unreliable compass, fails.

You may think this is a strange time to bring up problem-solving, but I promise there is a point here. What do people do in the course of solving problems? They innovate. They find ways out of whichever ruts they're stuck in at the present moment. That is what takes us to the future and brings us out of the nasty, ugly, backward past: being able to identify problems, and instead of moping, solve them. The Great Gatsby ends 'So we beat on, boats against the current, borne back ceaselessly into the past.'—great book, by the way, I'm sure your kids can tell you all about it. How I choose to interpret that quote is that it's saying something about human nature, how society is wont to rise and fall. And without doing something about it, that's exactly what we do: we go back into the past, cascading down waterfalls and damn near shipwrecking ourselves!

So in closing, I personally don't care if your students forget how to do physics, calculus, or whatever else—their teachers here may feel a bit sad, but that's not my concern. If they've learned a more efficient way of tackling the world, a more effective one, then your students did not waste their time. Thank you."

Mr. Mudd stepped to the side and gestured for Frank to descend, who gingerly stepped over his classmates' feet and nearly slipped down the steps. None the worse for wear, he came to the podium and pulled out a neatly stacked sheaf of index cards from his pocket.

"Dear friends, classmates, and Epsilons,

First, I would like to congratulate all who survived high school. From the endless days swimming laps in the pool to that palpitating, crushing fear right before taking a test, or whatever path you followed to survive, your hard work has paid off. You have earned this moment standing before your peers and your adoring family. Take a deep breath, smile, and center yourself. Think of your successes, when your team won the badminton championship or when the audience gave you and your castmates a standing ovation after a performance of Sweeney Todd, but do not forget your disappointments. Very few of us are standing here today without regrets. Tenacity has brought us success, and if we keep that value dear to our hearts, we will continue to succeed.

Now, onto the sad part. It is far too easy when living in the moment, no matter when that moment may be, to forget that this too shall pass. In a few months, when it is summer and all you can think to do is anticipate the next stage of your life, you will begin to forget many of the familiar faces and names that surround you today. Even if you talk with your dearest friends daily, the rest of us will fade into white noise. In a few years, as we make new friends and memories, these new experiences, vivid in the moment, will push out the old ones, and what we regard today with deep significance will be mere footnotes.

High school will be something recalled in friendly conversations that happen every now and then, when in the back of your mind you may wonder what happened to that person you used to talk to daily. Maybe you will send them a quick message just to say hello, but even if for a few hours they have reclaimed their position on a pedestal in your mind, they too will fade. Some of us in English class read the poem "Do not go gentle into that good night" by Dylan Thomas; I encourage all of us to "rage, rage against the dying of the light." We must all squeeze every last ounce of happiness out of those memories, and only when we are truly content move on; do not go gentle into that good night until you are ready to never return.

I do not want to dwell on negativity forever, no matter how tempting it may be for all of us at this troubled time to do so. All good things must come to an end, but who is to say that more good things may not follow that end? We may feel now that we have no choice but to sacrifice that comfort we intimately know for a future that seems cold, foreign, and scary, and it is natural to feel that way. Nobody wants to feel weakness when they once felt strength. Especially when we look at our own bright futures and cannot resist the temptation to look at someone else's bright future and call theirs brighter, we may look at the last four years as a failure. The great captain Jean-Luc Picard wrote, "It is possible to commit no mistakes and still lose. That is not weakness. That is life." Do not look out at the future, the brave new world that awaits us all, as something to be feared, driving us back into sweet memories of the past. Look at it as a blank canvas: the future is only what we make today. We must take this sacred responsibility seriously, as the alternative is that we spend our lives shrouded in misery; live every day as if it were part of our own brightest future. Some day, we will be there, and each day of us manifesting dreams into reality gets us a bit closer.

From the bottom of my heart, I wish you all the most sincere congratulations. I will miss you all, and once again, never forget how to be a good person.

Sincerely,

Franklin Barnes."

"Wasn't he the cult guy?" one parent whispered to another while they politely applauded.

"Must not have been. Sounds like a good kid though."

The ceremony proceeded from there to the long and tedious handing out of diplomas, where Mr. Mudd and Mr. Kurtz tried their hardest to give every single student a personal touch, overcompensating with some names by heavily rolling the "r"s in an attempt to be authentic. Nobody dared open their diploma just to make sure that there was indeed the promised slip of paper inside; everyone, even the Epsilons, wore the same black robes and carried the same black leather cases. The banalities continued, and a few young kids did what Mr. Mudd promised would happen and fell asleep, heads laying on their parents' laps. Mr. Cathcart delivered the concluding epilogue, reading some sort of Shakespeare passage that elicited polite nods from the audience, and with a final thunderous standing ovation the students descended into the warm arms of their parents.

"Some day, we shall meet again," John forced himself to say, a tear in the corner of his eye.

"How about Monday?" Beth retorted.

"Yeah, that works. And I thought I was building up to something dramatic," John laughed, and he went off to perambulate more, hoping to find more of his peers to deliver prophetic pearls of wisdom to. He found Alan standing at the periphery of the field, looking over the assembled students laughing for the last time and those making hasty exits.

"What's your plan now, Alan? You always have a plan."

"I've always wanted to found a startup. I think I have some ideas to make even more money from my crypto schemes—let's keep this between you and me, but I'm not sure if this is a Ponzi scheme or not, so don't gab about it. Loose lips sink ships."

"My lips are sealed. How about this summer?"

"I'm going to take my mom to Tahiti. We've earned a break."

"It's a magical place," John smiled.

Tom prowled the field not knowing who he was looking for; he had already said goodbye to Regina, even if temporary, and who else really mattered? Frank must have sensed his angst, he thought:

"From now on I'm thinking only of me," Tom said, casting his eyes across the field.

Frank replied indulgently with a superior smile: "But, Tom, suppose everyone felt that way."

"Then," said Tom, "I'd certainly be a damned fool to feel any other way, wouldn't I?"

"I thought you changed. You're strong, did one year of high school really defeat you? Where are you headed for college, anyway?"

"I'm continuing my family legacy," Tom said with a swell of pride, "to USC. Right across the city from Juliet, fortuitously enough. This means I can continue cheering for her inevitable demise, and yours by extension!"

"The University of Spoiled Children. Figures," Frank groaned.

"Oh, are you coming to the lake this year? One last week to remember all the good times? Come on, it will be fun."

"Yeah, sure. A bit of nostalgia never hurt anyone."

Thanks to Tom's reminder, Frank went to find Juliet. Frank's luck put him right by Juliet as her parents and grandmother were beginning to take photos, so naturally he had to be included in the spectacle.

"He's a genius," Juliet's grandmother explained to Juliet's parents, and everyone but Juliet nodded knowingly. Juliet's family saw other parents they knew, and they left without saying goodbye, leaving Frank and Juliet alone.

"Good night, good night! Parting is such sweet sorrow, that I shall say good night till it be morrow," Juliet said with a smile before bursting into laughter. "I finally got to use that. But anyway, I hope this does not mean the end. I can't imagine how boring my life is going to be now."

"I have no intentions of this being the end, even when we inevitably end up on opposite sides of the country. We live in the 21st century, there's nothing a bit of artifice can't fix. I've grown far too accustomed to our working lunches—why, I've grown accustomed to your face!—but I suppose we can't call them that now," Frank explained, a sudden horrific epiphany dawning on his face.

"They're dates. Or, at least, that's what I've been calling them since September, Romeo. But anyway, what's in a name?"

"Very clever. Very clever. And I thought I was the witty one."

"I've learned from the best. Are you free tomorrow for a brunch date at my place?"

"Not a date, but yes."

"Whatever you say..." She left to take more photos, and Frank shook his head and sighed. Ted had had the last laugh after all.

Behrooz looked both ways to make sure the coast was clear and then sauntered toward Beth, his hands in his pockets and his expression needlessly morose.

"So here we are..." Behrooz said.

"Yeah, here we are..." Beth responded coolly. "When you look back on your four years of high school, what do you think? Personally speaking, I can't wait to get out of here. Don't take any personal offense at this, but I miss wearing normal clothes to school."

"I've already privately disavowed all my association with the last year too many times to count this night. I'd rather be remembered as the nice DJ, not the collaborationist. Apathetic attitudes are a dime a dozen these days; it's hard to find someone with a good head on his shoulders. Don't be like Ted over there—how did he get in here? Anyway, I wish you all the best, with everyone. Here's looking at you, kid."

Ted still felt some strange tether linking him back to Heller, no matter how hard he tried to sever it. Perhaps it was the newspaper article that jogged his memory, but in any case, he had hopped the fence into the graduation ceremony and politely sat in the back through the entire thing. Somehow he had expected absurdity like the sort he had been conditioned to expect, but on the contrary, everything seemed normal. Nobody even mentioned the cult, like they all had a gentleman's agreement to convince the parents that their children were not brainwashed; the seed of heterodoxy had already had time to bloom in many, and even during the ceremony they plotted ways with their peers attending the same schools to keep up the good times, except this time with them in charge. The third wave had long passed, but waves promised to resonate into infinity and crash on the rocky shores for eternity.

"Jason, best buddy!" Ted smiled, patting Jason on the back before he could lash out in disgust. "Or should I say, comrade?"

"What are you doing here?"

"Saying goodbye to old friends, what else would I be doing? Look, I'm sorry for picking on you always. I've felt guilty about that for the longest time, especially seeing as you're nothing but a winner. Crouching tiger, hidden dragon, isn't that how the expression goes? Keep up the good fight."

"You too, Ted?"

Frank handled the letter Ms. Baldwin gave him with wariness—it had his writing on it, but why was it addressed to himself?

"Remember freshman year when you were supposed to write letters to your future selves? I held onto them for all the teachers. Read it when you get a chance; I don't know what you wrote, but I'm sure it must have been fascinating. If I'm remembering my chronology right, you must have written this just after you published How To Be A Good Person and the world was irreversibly changed. Keep in touch, Frank. Even though I didn't have you as a student, I'm glad to have known you."

Frank delicately unsealed the envelope and began scanning through—yada yada yada, please settle a bet: will Bitcoin ever get big?, yada yada yada, oh, this was interesting: "If you say something enough, you begin to believe it yourself. No matter what the future brings, never forget what you stand for, no matter who tries to make you forget. To thine own self be true." How sweet, Frank thought. No wonder he forgot about the letter; Frank had disappointed himself, clearly. Then again, weren't freshmen immature and incapable of holding deep thoughts? He had said that himself so many times, when he was but a sophomore and the freshmen did not look all that different, and still as a senior when only a few freshmen had names. But was that a fact, or was it an opinion that became a fact only through repetition? Too late now.

"John! Don't think you can leave without saying goodbye to me!" Regina shouted when it looked like John was growing antsy. "My high school experience wouldn't have been the same without you. I know you're always busy thinking deep thoughts, but relax a little. Enjoy the simpler things in life." John walked closer. "Oh, can I get a hug?"

"Fine," John grumbled.

A single story dulls our perception. It makes us not question what we see before us, the incontrovertible proof that what happened really did happen. For every John or Alan, somebody goes unnoticed too, someone who has their own meditative reflections to deliver in the dead of night or in a scathing letter. Adrian, the dashing star of the drama department, who used his charms and threats to rise from a nobody to the lead actor senior year—give the drama teacher kudos for his accurate casting: gay Hitler was, in fact, portrayed by a gay fascist! Madeline, who, while everyone else was busy carrying boxes of vegetable juice or leading the choir in rousing renditions of the Soviet anthem was studying all day and night to get into Harvard, and who upon stepping into her mother's car after graduation promptly purged all memories of the maelstrom around her. Louis, who was nearly kicked off the football team for trying LSD, and if not for his parents threatening to unleash a litigation campaign would have descended into ignominy. All of these stories are just as interesting, if not more so, than the ones described. They had all the same twists and turns, betrayals and reflections, yet simply were so unfortunate as to be forgotten. And there are many more out there, but no narrator could do justice to every single story! Thus, a decision has to be made, and our dramatis personae are the lucky few to win the lottery and have their memories dissected and put on display. Even for those who through their good fortune have had their time in the limelight, what were they thinking the entire time? How did they occupy the boring days, the days subject to the simple routine of class, club, class, then home again? That first question is most important: what did they think? It is not enough to tell what they did—the facts are as plain as day, and not outside the realm of extrapolation. But no story can tell completely what everyone thought at any moment; the stories told with Juliet, or Regina, or Beth, or Alan as protagonist will never be told, and even if one grasps warily at them, all those stories remain in the dark realm of fiction. And certainly, such a clashing perspective would make this palimpsest a more honest tale, and perhaps someday as Hawthorne delivered us "another view of Hester," we shall have "another view of Heller." Because of this very fact, do not delude yourself into thinking John and Frank the protagonists, no matter how this iteration of truth may lie to you—just because they hogged all the attention does not make their stories inherently more complex! Good fortune, a roll of the dice. That is all it is.

The remaining teachers outside who hadn't disappeared already, feeling the wind starting to bite and the warmth of day fading with the sunset, quickly folded up the chairs and left, leaving the field empty. A popped balloon drifted across like a tumbleweed, its foil catching the ochre rays of sunlight fading through the fence until it lifted off and flew over the fence into a garbage can. Up the steps, a janitor locked the door into the central courtyard, hoping no students were trapped inside. A few classrooms still had their lights on, but those slowly turned off as teachers left in black coats carrying their backpacks. A crow flew down from a tree and hopped between the tables, then left carrying a piece of salami somehow left from that morning—a fortuitous find indeed. Eventually, the school was once again quiet.

Discussion Questions:

Identify some themes in Frank's speech; in particular, note references to How To Be A Good Person and components of his high school experience. Do you think Frank feels remorse for his actions? For another perspective, you might want to contrast it with Mr. Mudd's speech—which do you think serves as a better graduation speech?

What function does the aside in the penultimate paragraph serve? Do you agree with the points made?

What are your final impressions of the novel?